


In Between

by jellijeans



Category: Bravely Default (Video Game) & Related Fandoms
Genre: BIG SPOILERS FOR BRAVELY DEFAULT AND BRAVELY SECOND, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-22 21:58:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14318019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellijeans/pseuds/jellijeans
Summary: After Tiz falls asleep, Agnès doesn’t really know what to do with herself.Sure, she maintains the crystals—that’s always been her calling—but at the same time, she really thought that when she wasn’t wandering from temple, she would...she doesn’t know, maybe visit Tiz? He is—was—her hope, after all. She had promised she would go visit him, and yet there just hadn’t been enough time until it was too late.





	1. silence

After Tiz falls asleep, Agnès doesn’t really know what to do with herself.

 

Sure, she maintains the crystals—that’s always been her calling—but at the same time, she really thought that when she wasn’t wandering from temple, she would...she doesn’t know, maybe  _ visit Tiz _ ? He is—was—her hope, after all. She had promised she would go visit him, and yet there just hadn’t been enough time until it was too late.

 

As the months pass, Agnès dedicates herself to rewriting the Crystalist scriptures, omitting everything that talked about awakening the crystals to save the world—she had led it to its demise following those scriptures, and she would not allow another to repeat her mistakes. She travels back to the temples and calms the crystals, watches as the Holy Pillar disappears, and then packs her things and travels from Ancheim to Gathelatio, the newly rekindled Seat of the Orthodoxy, per the Templar’s request. She leaves the Temple of Wind in the acolytes’ capable hands and finds herself on the shores of a city she’s only ever heard about in whispers from the late mother vestal; in shining white resplendence, Gathelatio is everything she’s ever pictured it would be.

 

“Vestal!”

The voice is so familiar that for a moment, she’s caught off guard with Ringabel’s sudden and unusual formality before she realizes it isn’t really Ringabel at all. Alternis Dim races up to her and bows.

“Ah, Alternis! It’s good to see you well. How are you and the Lees?”

“We’re all doing well, Lady Vestal. Edea is settling back in well. I’m sure you know that the Lord Marshal called for you?”

“Of course.”

“Then please follow me.”

 

It’s hard to believe that in a way, Alternis and Ringabel are the same person—Alternis lacks all of Ringabel’s rolling Florem tones, having stoiced his voice to something much more akin to Eternia’s harsh rigidity. The dark knight leads her to a sprawling cathedral—the Sanctum, he calls it—and inside is the Templar, waiting with the Matriarch, Harena’s prime minister, Commander Goodman, and even the king of Caldisla.

“Ho, vestal!” the templar calls. Agnès bows to him.

“It is good to see you well, Lord Marshal. May I ask why I’ve been called here today?”

“Vestal of Wind...we world leaders, as I’m sure you know, have been discussing what to do surrounding the Orthodoxy. With the Harrowing averted, anti-Crystalism as a concept must die, but the Orthodoxy’s corruption must still be kept in check lest it happen again,” Braev explains. Agnès nods. “And so, we as leaders of each region have decided that the Orthodoxy, like other organizations, must have a fair leader that will lead in forward honorably and with head held high—a pope, if you will.”

Agnès winces. “The absence of the other vestals must have contributed to this decision. The Orthodoxy has had no need for a pope before.”

“Partially, yes,” Braev admits. “Should a situation like this one ever arise again, where only one vestal and no vestalings are present, it is far better to have a leader who can not only tend to all of the crystals, but can select and train more vestalings. But primarily, it is for the reasons we mentioned before.”

“I see.”

“Between the five of us, we have decided that it would only be right for you to accept this position, if you will take it.”

Agnès’ eyes immediately widen, and her breath catches.

“M-me, Lord Marshal? Are you sure? It was I who lead this world—no,  _ countless _ worlds to ruin—”

“It was also you who saved it,” he reminds her gently. Agnès falls silent.

Really, she hadn’t saved it alone. The four of them had saved it together, but...

“If you believe it becoming of me, I would be more than happy to take this position, Lord Marshal,” she responds quietly, voice shaking. “I will not fail you again.”

“You did not fail us the first time, Your Holiness.” He grins at her, and Agnès can see the same lines on his face that Edea gets when she smiles. The resemblance is truly uncanny, and yet fitting, in a way. Edea truly is her father’s daughter. “And please, call me Braev.”

Braev reaches out and shakes Agnès’hand, and for the first time since they woke up in the second world, Agnès feels like she is doing something right.

“With this position in mind, Lord Marshal—er, Braev—is it acceptable if I officialize my rewritings of the scriptures? I wish to give more freedom to the vestals, but also to prevent a tragedy such as the Harrowing from ever happening again,” Agnès requests. Braev nods.

“Of course, Your Holiness. The Orthodoxy, and by extension the Crystalguard, are entirely under your control. Please reshape it as you see fit. Alternis and I are here to help you settle in, as Gathelatio is now your home base, so to speak—we will send a messenger to your acolytes, and while we prepare the Sanctum for your formal arrival and induction, please stay in Eternia. Edea is there, and I understand that the two of you may want to visit Central Command—” The Templar immediately stops when he sees Agnès’ face drop. While she’s more than happy that she’ll get to visit Tiz, this is not nearly the circumstances she would have wished for while doing so. “—er, you’re more than free to do so, Your Holiness. Please consider all of Eternia as your home.”

“Thank you, Braev.”

 

Eternia being completely and entirely open to her is quite the change from one year ago.

It’s nice, she decides, as she boards the Eschalot and heads to Eternia.

 

When she arrives, Edea is the first to greet her—the younger girl races into her arms and hugs her perhaps the hardest she’s ever been hugged in her entire life.

“Agnès! It’s you! It’s been so long...so, are you pope now?”

“Y-yes, I just accepted the position. It’s so good to see you, Edea!”

“You too!” Edea pauses for a moment, exhaling slightly. “Not to put a damper on the mood or anything, but...now that you’ve got your new position and all, we should go see Tiz, right?”

“Yes...I think you’re right. We should go.”

 

Central Command is exactly how she remembers it, but somehow, it seems so much warmer than she remembers it being. Still, the path to the vivipod might be even colder than she recalls—perhaps because of who now sleeps in it.

She hasn’t been able to bring herself to come here since they first deposited Tiz into the stasis chamber, but now that she’s back, the sorrow in the room is...crushing. It’s awful to see Tiz with maybe seven tubes sticking out of his back, an oxygen mask hooked to his face, and more IVs attached to his arm than she knows what to do with. His hair is longer than it was when they found him just nine months ago, but his face is just as regretfully peaceful—his eyes are shut, too, and the vivipod carefully tracks his steady breathing and heart rate, but his ghostly-pale skin and increasingly gaunt appearance betray his stable vitals and make one thing all too clear to Agnès—

Tiz Arrior, no matter how slowly, is dying.


	2. response

She really thought she would be stronger than this when she finally saw Tiz, and yet every defense she had built up surrounding the subject falls away as soon as she sees him. After Tiz had collapsed, people  _ knew _ —it’s kind of hard not to when you see two heroes of light sobbing while rushing the third to the central healing tower. After having to deliver speeches to the public over and over, she and Edea have grown accustomed to dodging questions surrounding Tiz’s...condition—and yet while Edea, who lives in Central Command, had grown used to the sight of Tiz, it is a brutally new experience for Agnès.

Her strength, losing his own.

 

The sight is almost unbearable; she approaches the vivipod gingerly and lets her fingers slide down its glass window, hoping, praying that for just a moment, Tiz’s hand might slide up and meet her own from the other side, as they would sometimes do when he...when he was awake. Still, like she knew he would, he doesn’t—he doesn’t even move—merely floats there, entombed in Eternia’s strongest elixirs, clinging to life and yet sliding to his death all at the same time.

She can’t even say he’s clinging to life  _ desperately _ , because he’s not conscious enough to do so. Despite the fact that the vivipod is what keeps him alive, she has the overpowering suspicion that the same chamber that keeps him alive will be the chamber that watches him die. The vivipod might as well be a coffin.

 

Agnès feels tears start to streak down her face—the boy who had followed her without question through myriad worlds, the hero of Norende, the miracle,  _ her _ miracle—this is what he’s been reduced to, then. A mere husk of a person.

 

When she and Edea had made the official statement surrounding Tiz’s...condition, the world had fallen silent. Though Agnès wasn’t sure if he registered it at the time, even on their journey, Tiz had been more or less in the center of the world stage; the only survivor of the horrific Norende catastrophe, but also a gentle, happy-go-lucky, kind, and endlessly caring person. Everyone who they’d spoken to had made that comment about him, even after he had fallen asleep. The loss of her strength had been the loss of the world’s strength, although a selfish part of her wants to scream that losing Tiz had been harder on her than anyone else. Ringabel may have left, but Edea still has her parents and Alternis—she has no one. The new acolytes do not know her the same way the old ones did, she has not had a mother vestal since she was a young girl, and while Edea is still her best friend, Edea does not know her the way Tiz does—did. The way Tiz did.

Tiz was her chosen companion, after all. Were the Sage here, he would verify, she thinks. Through countless worlds, the Sage watched Agnès bring Tiz and Tiz alone to the vestment cave.

Come to think of it, Edea and Ringabel watched Agnès bring Tiz and Tiz alone to the vestment cave, too, so Edea knows she can never fill the hole that Tiz has left behind.

 

“Agnès—” Edea’s voice snaps Agnès out of her thoughts. She turns and faces the other girl. Edea swallows. “I’ll...listen, I know I said we were going here together, but I also know this is the first time you’ve seen Tiz like...like this,” she says softly. She rests a gentle hand on Agnès’ shoulder. “I’ll give you some time alone with him. You clearly need it.”

“Thank you,” she whispers softly. Edea offers her a melancholic smile and steps out of the room. With that, Agnès turns back to Tiz, her voice laced with regret.

“I am so sorry, Tiz,” she whispers. “If I could—if you could listen—there are so many things I would wish to tell you. I—”

Her voice breaks, and she has to pull herself together for a moment to keep from sobbing.

“Tiz, you mean the world to me,” she says softly. “I would not be able to live with myself were this...machine...to fail you. If it were anyone else, I would have just said for the crystals to take you, that it is your time, but you...I could not let that happen to you, Tiz. I threw the crystals behind me and turned to the one thing that I never had even considered before in order to save your life, and for what? It has only partially worked, and yet I do not regret a second of it. While you are not conscious, every second of life that this can buy you is another second I am eternally thankful for.”

She pauses again for second, thinking of what to say next, before cursing at herself. It’s not like he’s listening, so she—

She’ll just say whatever’s on her mind, then.

“I’ve been asked to be the first pope of the Orthodoxy. We’ve had no need for one before, but the arrival of the Harrowing has changed things, I suppose. I’m rewriting the scriptures. Previously, the vestals were servant, bride, and priestess to the crystals—while the crystals undoubtedly need someone to attend to them, I do not think the vestals must be wed to the crystals alone. I would not have been able to get through that journey if I did not have you by my side, and I did not—and still do not, really—wish to go through the rest of my life without you. I intend to serve as pope for some time, and yet...if—if you wake up, I will finish my duties, and I will return with you to Norende. It is all I wish for, to live out the rest of my life with you. You are my miracle, Tiz.”

She falls silent again, and wraps one hand around her pendant and rests the other against the glass again. Like she knows he won’t, he doesn’t move, but she still looks up at him and takes in every tiny detail of his face, of his everything, in fear that those details will soon be the only thing she has to remember him by.

“I love you, Tiz.”

 

With that, she turns and leaves, and takes no notice of the light flutter of his heartbeat a mere second after the words left her mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> me? loving the bravely series? it's more likely than you think


End file.
